


All The Chaos

by mortaltemples



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Community: rarewomen, Gen, Introspection, Mentions of PTSD, cosette working through some stuff, ladies thinking about social issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 23:11:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortaltemples/pseuds/mortaltemples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>some days it seems like that barricade affected the lives of everyone around her and all Cosette wants is to understand <i>why</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Chaos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angevin2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/gifts).



It wouldn’t take much. All she had to do is ask him one single question, just one, and she would have at least attempted to get the answers she sought. Cosette could see it in her mind’s eye so clearly. Crossing their bedroom slowly, stopping just in front of her husband, reading in his chair, bathed by the mid-morning light coming through the bay window, and Cosette threading her fingers gently through his. She would ask him slowly, quietly, what she wanted to know and he would get quiet. Ask her what happened to trying to move on and forget and turn back to his book. No, Marius would not tell her. And she would never inflict that upon him - never force him to delve into those memories simply to satisfy her curiosity. She could never be so cruel.

****

Nevertheless, the question itches at the back of her mind when strolling the streets of Paris, when she sees a copy of _Le Constitutionnel_ being read in cafés and whenever she sees Marius’ eyes glaze over she wants nothing more than to ask him and get an answer - ask one, simple question that might help her understand.

****

_What did they die for?_ His friends. Intellectually, she comprehends it; they wanted to build a republic, they fought and they lost. But in her heart, Cosette could not grasp it, not really. The idea that a person could lay down their life for something intangible, for the sake of an ideal bewildered her. She looks at her husband and sees his pain, she sees the damage that day caused his soul and her father, her dear father...some days it seems like that barricade affected the lives of everyone around her and all Cosette wants is to understand _why_.

****

She visited her father’s grave on an April morning, when the ground is slightly soft from rain beneath her boots and thought of all that she had learned of him since his death. It was an odd feeling. She knew and understood him, better than anyone else, she liked to think, and yet she knew next to nothing of the man who took her from the Thénardiers and cared for and loved her all those years.

****

Did it matter? She had never thought so. He was a good man and had been since that very first evening they met. That was all that mattered. He had looked at her and knew she understood suffering, taught her to understand that she never deserved to live under those circumstances. That no one did. If she asked Marius about his friends, would he tell her that is why they did what they did? That they saw the way others suffer and saw themselves in them? Did they feel a connection with the poor who still line the streets? It would be a good reason. Her father would have approved of it.

****

Whenever Cosette saw homeless children, she thought of herself. She thought of what her childhood was like and how scared she was. She thought of the cruelty of the Thénardiers and then remembered Marius telling her of the young girl’s death on the barricade.

****

So many lives for so little achieved, even Marius, even _herself_ who was never there still feel the effects of it and it just is not _fair_. It is not right. Why should she care? Why should it weigh down on her so? She wanted to be free, to live life the way she wanted, yet every time Cosette buys a fresh bunch of tulips for her home, she feels like she is betraying Marius because whenever she sees their brightness, she wants to smile. She sees children in rags begging in the streets, begging, not playing and she thinks of what would have happened to her had her father not kept his promise to her mother. Her mother who she was assured was kind and gentle and good and did all she could for Cosette, who nevertheless left her with the Thénardiers with nothing more than some hazy memories of a smile and soft arms holding her close. Those memories are clearer when she sees those children.

****

_If it’s not fair for her, then how must it be for them?_

_**** _

It is that thought that made her turn away from the grave, making sure to steady her breathing as she went. She loved her father, he was a good man, but he was gone. As was her mother. She was far out of the Thénardier’s reach and she has a husband. A husband who needs her and who she is only just starting to understand. She is a citizen of Paris, a city that forever seems to teeter on the edge of destruction - almost falling off, almost burning itself to the ground. They need her help, her husband and her city. Cosette is needed, and Cosette is kind. She has learned that these two things in combination can lead to great things - her marriage, for one.

****

So she passes a tabac, and buys a newspaper. She sees the women and children lining the streets and doesn’t turn away. She looks into their eyes. She doesn’t have much to give them, but she can afford them that small dignity, however little it may be worth.

****

Her husband’s friends died for something. Her father died for something. She does not know whether she will ever be able to fully understand what it is, but she feels it. She feels it building in her chest when she looks around her and sees people walking past without a care in the world. She feels it when she thinks of her mother, her loving and gentle mother, and how she remembers the cold, dark woods more clearly than her mother’s smile. It is a spark that had been lying in wait that has now caught.

****

So she goes home and waits for Marius. She will not ask him what they died for. Cosette finds that she no longer needs to know. Not anymore, because now she thinks she understands some small measure of what they felt. It is not fair. It is not right. Should life be fair, or just? Perhaps not. But all her family and everyone she knows who has died for a cause no one quite understands did not deserve what happened. _She_ did not deserve this. And if she cannot save them for Marius, she will save Marius for their sake.

****  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
